In over his head
by Dal Niente
Summary: Megamind realizes something troubling after Roxanne gets hurt during an evil plot.


Cold Fusion 'verse, but you don't have to have read CF. This is just a little one-off about when Megamind realized Roxanne wasn't just a pawn. I found it in my snippets folder earlier today and figured I might as well clean it up and post it. Trigger warnings for blood and self-harm.

**In over his head**

The game, Megamind thinks, has been going particularly well lately.

Escaping prison is becoming laughably easy, which means he has more time to spend on executing his plans so they aren't quite as disastrous as they were back when he had to leave them mainly to Minion and the brainbots. Metro Man seems to be actually _trying_ to defeat him now. Really having to work at it. Good.

Metrocity's various underground cells have finally gotten their act together and are starting to follow the rules he's set down and insisted upon, and Megamind isn't having to go out and enforce them half as often anymore because the Dukes have finally structured their organizations so that _they_ are now handling the majority of enforcement. Which leaves Megamind free to direct his focus elsewhere.

On top of all that, he even has a regular kidnappee! A _good_ one, too, if he ignores her perpetual unflappability—and even that's not really a problem because she's starting to look like _maybe_, one of these days, she _might_ scream. My god, he's actually having _fun_ with it, he's having a grand old time.

Until she falls.

(Even then she doesn't _really_ scream. More of a surprised gasp. Okay, it's a scream, but it doesn't count because he didn't mean for it to happen.)

One of his brainbots swerves like a crazy thing, sinks its jagged teeth into her arm and fires all its thrusters to slow her descent, but she still crashes to the ground and lies motionless on the floor of his Lair with her limbs splayed and her eyes closed, and there's blood—blood pooling around her head, reflecting the blue thrusters of the brainbot that hovers over her with—blood on its jaws, bowging worriedly. Blood draining out of Megamind's face; the bottom of his stomach is flopping around somewhere down near knee-level. So much blood.

There's so much _blood_. He doesn't _understand_ it. Doesn't understand the fear that takes him. Doesn't understand why he's backing away, shaking his head.

It's Metro Man who sweeps down to her, calling her name, shouting for her. It's Metro Man who elbows the brainbot out of the way to gather her up, her head lolling dangerously. It's Metro Man who tucks her into his chest and flees without looking back, and it's Megamind who stands like a stick, staring after them with his heart in his mouth and his hands hanging uselessly by his sides.

He can't go see her at the hospital, he knows. It would be wrong in a way he can't explain, _wrong_ even for him. Not _Evil_. He knows Evil, he's good at Evil. This would be _wrong_.

But he _wants_ to see her. He wants to be there.

(This was his fault.) (He wasn't careful.)

"Well, Sir," Minion says slowly, trying to reassure, trying to buck him up. "Well. Sir. At least…she…" He trails off at the blank look Megamind sends him, lapses instead into concerned silence.

In the newspapers the following day, they say she hasn't regained consciousness. They say something might be wrong with her neck. Or with her brain. They aren't sure. It might, they say, be nothing. Neural scans read okay, but she hasn't woken up yet and that's _usually_ a sign of something more serious.

Megamind stares at his breakfast and doesn't touch it. After a while, he gets up and leaves the kitchen. Minion doesn't say anything about it.

The brainbot who caught Roxanne—an older model, one of Megamind's earliest, flits over to him while he's staring at the monitors, silently taking in the news. Her blood is still on its teeth. He takes a rag, some cold water, cleans it slowly. The cyborg holds miraculously still for him. "Thank you," he whispers, and he isn't sure for what. At least she's _alive_. That's something. It's something.

It was a _game_. She was his kidnappee. His victim! He's evil, _he's the bad guy_. He should be over the moon about this.

On television, the news stations are having a field day. Of course there's nothing that says, Metro Man Too Late. He's their golden boy, he can do no wrong, and anyway it's not really _his_ fault the eye-lasers rebounded. But Megamind finally hurt his kidnappee, and _that's_ what they're talking about, that's what they're taking seriously, and Megamind just. Doesn't. Know. What to do with that.

Or where to _go_ with it. He might as well be an awkward teenager again on his first big project. He should be pleased about the media. Thrilled, even, because it's the best press he's ever had, it's _really_ _good press_. Or bad. Bad in the way that's beneficial to his reputation as a ruthless, cold supervillain.

The ruthless supervillain buries his face in his blue hands. "_No_," he says, and under that, he's thinking, _What's wrong with me? What's going on?_ On the television, they're saying again how she hasn't woken up. Vitals are good, they say, but until she wakes up they won't be sure how bad the damage is.

"No," he says again, and god, he's not even sure what he's trying to deny. He lights a cigarette, drags on it like it's an oxygen line. It doesn't help. What's going _on?_

It's just a _game_, he wants to snarl. It doesn't mean anything! She doesn't mean anything, she's a pawn, just a piece of the puzzle. And not even an important piece! She's _replaceable_, even! _It's a game!_

_I'm evil_, he tells himself. Evil. Not good. No good. _This is stupid. I am being stupid. You are being stupid. He is/She is/They are being stupid_. So she got hurt, so what. Oh well. It happens.

He continues to tell himself _this is stupid, you are stupid_ until it stops sounding like a real word even inside his own exceptionally impressive mind, and he's about to switch to 'dumb' when the words Breaking News makes him look up.

The woman on the screen is smiling and saying, yes, This Just In, she's awake, she's woken up and she's lucid, she's talking, and the relief that rinses through Megamind leaves him shivering and wide-eyed in its wake, staring at the screen with tears in his eyes and hearing nothing after that. Because that's when he knows.

It's a game, yes. But _she_ isn't.

She's not like his other kidnappees, he's known that for a while—for one thing, she's been his exclusive kidnappee for nearly three solid years now and she hasn't developed a panic disorder or anything, she's fine, she banters back and forth with him, _talks_ with him. She's like having a friend—or, at least, she's what he assumes having friends would be like.

But. Apparently she's more than that. To him.

Fuck.

Trembling fingers move the spent cigarette from his lips to the heel of his left hand, where he puts it out like he always does. The pain makes his focus sharpen to a brief point, and he swallows and glances down at the small collection of round wounds, some scarred over already, some in various stages of healing, and he thinks—not for the first time—that maybe that's a little bit not good, maybe he should stop. Maybe he should start wearing gloves more regularly.

His hand hurts. His head hurts. His heart hurts, too, but that's nothing new; that's been hurting for long enough that he hardly feels it anymore.

He's in _deep_.


End file.
